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“Tommy, come on! Keep up!”
Wilbur calls to him from across the field, already disappearing further into the meadow. The sun shines over them in a soft gaze, light and airy and a glow over their skin. It’s an exhale of relief from the harsher summer days when the heat slips through their blue wool coat and cotton shirt, sticking uncomfortably underneath their pits and sweltering the uniform. Wilbur runs past Eret’s endeavors on building up the walls, almost knocking over their paint bucket with nothing more than a startled laugh to apologize for it, and slams his palm onto the stone button of the van. The door swings open onto Fundy’s startled, curious face.
“You,” Wilbur says, heaving in breaths as Tommy jogs up, “are so slow.”
Tommy’s face is already flushed red from the race, blond curls clinging to the sweat glistening on his forehead, but the pinks in his cheeks darken even more at the tease. “You fucking bitch!”
It’s a battle cry, not any different from the shouts made towards Dream, and it’s really Wilbur’s fault for not expecting it when Tommy charges forward. He ducks his head and slams into Wilbur’s midriff, arms wrapped around his hips, and they both tip over to land unkindly onto the dirt. Fundy gasps beside them as if Wilbur had been shot instead of brought down by a vengeful lieutenant still in braces.
Wilbur wheezes. Tommy’s never weighed light, but he swears the gremlin somehow gained a hundred more pounds within the past week. It could’ve been the stew Tubbo graciously provided L’Manburg with last night that Tommy ate three helpings of. Tommy seems content to laugh maniacally above him.
He shoves at the blond’s face, his calloused palms pushing at his cheeks. “Get off, you oof!” He yells, trying his best to remain displeased instead of humored.
“No! You cheated, admit it.”
“Cheated?” Wilbur’s attempts at remaining stoic prove to be fruitless as he laughs anyways. “It’s not my fault I have longer legs than you. Perhaps try growing past four feet?”
Tommy tucks his fingers into a fist and punches Wilbur’s shoulder, though the movement unbalances him enough Wilbur can knock him away, and considering the thick material of their coats, it doesn’t do any damage at all. The laughter rocketing out of his lungs keeps him grounded, and he lays sprawled in front of the Caravan. It dirties the scrub job Tubbo did in the river for their white pants, but their friend caves his anger easily if Wilbur ‘politely’ asks for forgiveness (or drapes himself over Tubbo’s shoulders and whines in his ear, but the same method doesn’t work if Tommy attempts it, for whatever reason).
He looks up towards the sun. It’s a lovely blue sky today, unburdened by thick, suffocating clouds of blackened smoke. He can hear Fundy say something to Tommy, but his son’s words drift over him like the slight breeze. If he pays attention to it, he could hear ringing… like the aftermath of standing too close to an explosion. The pleasantness starts to sour.
“Wilbur.” Tommy says, stressing his name. He pulls apart the consonants. Wilbur doesn’t answer him. He props himself up on his elbow, scrunching his eyebrows together at the bitter smell of gunpowder. Has Dream rigged underneath the van? Tommy says his name again, more urgently, “Wilbur.”
Fundy looks older, all of a sudden. Wilbur could’ve sworn he saw him put on his crayon uniform this morning, but now he stands on the front step of the Caravan wearing a professionally tailored suit, with a red handkerchief tucked into his breast pocket. Nausea threatens to ruin him at the sight. His son is only– Fundy just turned– When he blinks, two versions of his son weave in and out of his focus, so he stops blinking and looks towards Tommy.
“Wilbur!” His friend, though aren’t they more than that at this point, having bandaged each other’s wounds and seeing each other died. Tommy held him the first night in the ravine as he sobbed nothing befitting of a President into his brother’s shoulder. But.. this is L’Manburg. That hadn’t happened yet.
“WILBUR!”
Wilbur wakes up.
He feels something cold and grimy under his cheek, even a little bit sticky when he pulls his face away. His muscles protest as he pushes himself up, his vision blending murky colors before setting to see the harsh grays and blacks of the station. He’s laying on the ground scarcely a few feet from the tracks. He hears his name again, but gathers his limbs into a more suitable position before raising his chin to the man across the buzz of dim fluorescent lights and foul-smelling trash.
Tommy looks panicked. He also looks dead. His complexion is pale and waxy, uncomfortably stretched across his cheekbones. His eyes were circled with purple bruises, pressed down so deep there's blotchy trenches underneath them. His hair is thoughtlessly tangled, with dark glittery specs shining in the light that he knows is dried blood. Wilbur doesn't know what he looks like, he hasn't asked and he's done his best to avoid looking down.
"Wilbur, holy shit. You weren't replying- you were just laying there! It was really fucking concerning." Tommy wrings his hands while he talks, out of the habit since they can't actually touch. "What the hell happened?"
Wilbur raises a hand to his face, scrubbing at the crust in his eyes. There's no actual crust, of course, but it helps him gain more awareness against Tommy's thunderous quiet. "I was dreaming," he mumbles. Tense silence follows his explanation. He remembers, starkly, that Tommy hasn't been dead for as long. There have been years without him.
Tommy sits down in a position similar to his. He drags his long legs up to his chest and rests his arms over them. If Wilbur had to guess, he'd say Tommy had grown, but the uncrossable distance between them leads to only using his eyesight to tell and he doesn't trust his vision not to lie. He wonders if Tommy gets cold, given he's only in a thread-bare shirt that's seen better days. If they hadn't already tried to toss things over the gap, he would've sacrificed his coat.
Better not to say that. Tommy wouldn't believe him.
"...The fuck you mean, dreaming?"
He sighs, though he shouldn’t have any air to give. Death doesn’t take away from the senses. The overhead lights will pierce his eyes if he stares at them too long (which he does, often and frequently), the ground will tremble underneath him when the trains roll through, and he bleeds. The skin around his fingers have been ripped down to bloody stubs from desperate attempts at digging through the concrete walls. He’s seen Tommy pick at his arms and tear out his hair.
The environment never changes. The people rarely do. Tommy is the first new arrival, and he’s left stranded on the other side of the tracks.
“Dreaming,” Wilbur reiterates. “We can sleep. It’s not needed, and it’s more of a fight to actually fall asleep, this time it took me days, but it’s a few moments of respite from this… lovely place. Why do you think you haven’t seen Schlatt? He’s asleep. It’s usually only a few days out of the year that he’ll wake up, lucky bastard. Actually, it’s around the time he’ll be waking up if you’re that desperate to see him. Am I truly that boring–”
“Tell me how.”
There’s a prickle of annoyance at being cut off, but he’s too tired and weary to snap. He doesn’t want Tommy to shut down; he needs an audience to hear him, lest his words bellow out into this desolate train station.
Wilbur doesn't answer quickly enough. Tommy's expression twists. "Tell me, bitch. C'mon."
Tommy never claws at the walls – he never interacts with the walls at all, never exploring like Wilbur had, as if the walls and ceilings and stairs that lead nowhere aren't there. Maybe they're not interesting enough. Most of the time Tommy looks at Wilbur like he's the only thing he can see.
"It's not easy," Wilbur says, which is the truth and a deflection. He doesn't want Tommy to fall asleep. He doesn't want Tommy to dream. The dreams are always memories of previous experiences and rarely is it enjoyable. He's haunted by the joy of the past. He suffers from his own greed, because Tommy would want nothing more than to slip away from this train station, and Wilbur's already spent years alone.
"Maybe tomorrow," he offers to Tommy's sour expression. "After JSchlatt comes by. You don't want to miss that."
A lingering tense pause, as Tommy picks at his arms, over scabs and bruises that haven’t quite healed. Maybe this time he’d finally say something in true defiance. Wilbur knows Tommy would like to sleep, to get away from Wilbur’s suffocating presence, just as they know he never plans to teach it.
With a quiet sigh, Tommy nods.
Wilbur straightens up and asks, with not-so-hidden relief, “Do you want to play a round of cards?”